Cutlass! is a fantasy pirate rulebook for use with our pirate ranges. 124 pages, full colour. Filled with excellent artwork, photography, graphics and miniatures.

This is very general overview to how the system works and certainly not a guide on how to play the game! Hopefully it should give a general idea in your head as to the type of game Cutlass is.

Cutlass is a fantasy pirate skirmish game. A crew/gang consists of around 10-30 models and a game takes a couple of hours.

The book has an introduction to the rules, actions, skills and weapons, encounters and campaign sections.

The campaign system is really the heart of the game. Your crew will increase (or decrease!) in number, gain skills, injuries, weapons and better attributes. You will also earn money to buy equipment, crew members and territory. At the end of each game there is a post game campaign sequence where all this happens. Roster sheets, tokens, charts etc.. are all in the book. We will also supply online versions of these free of charge.

You can also easily play one off games should you wish.

The game is land based. that's to say we haven't made rules for ship to ship combat. There's no reason you can't use the existing system aboard ships with existing ship rules.

Currently you have the choice of 7 different faction types to choose from:

Each has different strengths in different areas represented by their stats and skills they can acquire.

You must decide whether your crew wants to be famous or infamous at the start. Depending on your actions during in each game your crew will become more famous or infamous! You start with $500 and can purchase crew members, weapons as you choose. Allowing you from the start to go for a small well armed crew, or weaker with greater numbers.

There are 8 different encounters in the book and 4 special encounters. Encounters are basically the story line, guide to the game you're about to play. It outlines objectives, how to win and any post game events. A campaign is designed so that the players can invent a running storyline should they wish. To this end the campaign can come to end. In the book once certain criteria are met, E.g a gang gets to a certain size this triggers the 'final reckoning!' So there will be an ultimate winner of the campaign.

Gameplay:

The game is best played on roughly a 48" by 48" table with some scenery, buildings etc... There are pictures of the table we made in the book for inspiration.

The game uses a dice system and the following dice:

D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20. We will be supplying packs of these on our website.

Broadly speaking, the dice represent the models statistics. So the higher dice you roll for a particular stat, the better you are. As you get post game increases you may for example increase a stat from a D6 to a D8, D10 to a D12 etc..

Dice rolls are also open ended. meaning should you roll a maximum you can roll again adding the totals and so on...

There are 2 types of modifiers in the game. Weapons, skills, injuries and a number of things can trigger these.

One is +1 dice, meaning you roll 2 of the given dice and choose the highest. The other is + 1 level, meaning you roll a dice level higher (eg a D10 would become a D12 for that roll).

These are used throughout the game for the model to perform any given action. E.g Accuracy is used for shooting.

There are no strict player turns in Cutlass. There is an active gang and inactive gang. A leader has a special stat called Authority. This is rolled at the start to give each player an 'action point' total. The highest is active. We provide special action point charts in the book to keep track. The active gang can declare an action (there is movement, shooting, combat and a catch all category called 'special actions' which involves re-loading, re grouping etc etc..) . The number of models that can perform that action is equal to the current action point total. E.g if you have an action total of 8 and declare a movement action, 8 models may move. You then reduce your action total by 1 to 7. Next 7 models can perform the given action.

At certain points the inactive gang can choose to try and 'Re act' should they wish. They make a test at the cost of 1 action point and if successful become the active gang immediately.

In this way tactics come into play and when and how you choose to use your action points is very important! It allows for fast paced action games where the tide can quickly change in favour of the other player! Once both players have an action of 0 there is a recovery phase, the leaders then re-roll their Authority test. Suffice to say you leader is very important to you!

The specifics of how each encounter is won or lost is detailed in the particular encounter. There is also a generic win/lose system for one off games or other encounters. We encourage gamers to create their own encounters and share them with the community.

What else is in the book?

The book is filled with superb graphic design, layout, artwork and photography.

All the gameplay charts, rosters, tokens are at the back for you to photocopy.

The book also contains a number of special characters and hired hands. These bring another level of depth and interest to your games. Being able to bring in Cannons, Giants, or Pirates of worldwide renown!

Quick reference guide. Supplied at the back for easy use during gameplay.

Gallery: pictures of all the current ranges of Black scorpion miniatures, helping you recruit your next crew member!

All this and more!

In summary it's a fun fast paced game that allows you to create you crew in the image and way you like. Hope you enjoy it!

Cutlass Tokens and charts!

In the back of the book you will find all the tokens and charts you need to play the game.

But we've made them available online for free! Easier to print out rather than photocopying your book. I'm sure you'll agree they look fantastic and may be useful for other gaming too.